Contact
Maike Charlotte Fuchsmf@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-220Kathrin Feldmann-Uhlkf@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-241
General Management
Jonathan Stockhammer, conductor
Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Staatsballett Berlin, ballet
Alfred Schnittke, Das Leben mit einem Idioten
Philharmonia Zürich
Chor der Oper Zürich, choir
If one wants to do justice to Jonathan Stockhammer's broad spectrum of musical work and genre-spanning curiosity, one cannot think in pigeonholes. The Los Angeles-born conductor deals with so-called classical as well as contemporary repertoire with the same passion. Understanding and appreciating music in its universality is the driving force behind his work - for him, great music is not bound to a specific genre. He loves opera just as much as he loves experimental world premieres or unconventional concert formats. His talent for explaining music and understanding the audience as a dialogue partner makes music understandable and experienceable in a new way. A charismatic communicator, he applies his interpretational sensibilities to both well-known, beloved repertoire as well as to overlooked masterworks of the past. Composers of today respect him as an experienced, flexible and astute partner in bringing their works to life. On stage, he forges strong bonds between performers and audiences. In rehearsal and performance alike, he has a gift for creating a community of the moment and for the moment.
Opera is central to Jonathan Stockhammer’s work. The operas he has conducted, including Zemlinsky‘s Eine florentinische Tragödie, Sciarrino‘s Luci mie traditrici or Wolfgang Rihm’s Proserpina and Deus Passus, identify him as a conductor who welcomes and masters the difficulties presented by complex scores and special, interdisciplinary productions. In 2013, he made his debut at the New York City Opera in Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face. In 2016, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in a new production of Peter Eötvös‘s Tri Sestri (Three Sisters) and returned in the spring of 2020. After 2019 and 2021/22, he is once again a guest at Zurich Opera in the current season and will direct the new production of Life with an Idiot by Alfred Schnittke, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. Following the new production of Philip Glass' Satyagraha, directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, at the Komische Oper Berlin and the Basel Theatre, he opened the 2019/2020 Basel season with Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore. In the 2022/23 season, he made his debuts at Opera Vlaanderen (Satyagraha), Oper Frankfurt (Das schlaue Füchslein) and the Staatsballett Berlin (Onegin). In the 2023/24 season, he directed the opening production BOVARY by Christian Spuck, the new artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin, and made his debut at the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) with Dialogues des Carmélites. In the 2024/25 season, he can be seen in the new production of Philip Glass' Echnaton (Aknathen) directed by Barrie Kosky at the Komische Oper Berlin - his first collaboration with the renowned opera and theatre director.
Jonathan Stockhammer has worked with numerous reputable orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Donaueschingen Festival, Biennale Venice, the Wiener Festwochen and Wien Modern. In June 2024, he conducted the Dresden Philharmonic in a concert marathon with Patricia Kopatchinskaya, in which six violin concertos by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Berg, Schönberg, Bartók and Hartmann were performed on three consecutive evenings.
Aside from conducting classical and romantic masterpieces and contemporary classical works, he enjoys delving into music that blurs the boundaries between classical music, rock, pop, and hip-hop. His CD Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions with Ensemble Modern (RCA, 2003), featuring works by Frank Zappa, won an Echo Klassik Award. He also recorded a new soundtrack to Sergei Eisensteins’s 1925 film The Battleship Potemkin, composed and performed by the Pet Shop Boys. His live recording of The New Crystal Silence with Chick Corea, Gary Burton and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra won a Grammy in 2009.
Jonathan Stockhammer first studied Chinese and political science before moving on to studies in composition and conducting in his hometown of Los Angeles. During his studies, he filled in for a series of concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, after which he was asked to become chief conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s assistant. After completing his studies, he moved to Germany where he formed close relationships with well-known European ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Collegium Novum Zürich and Ensemble Resonanz.
2024/2025 season
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"Everyone involved will never forget these memorable three evenings. The splendid new hall of the Kulturpalast has never experienced such a breathtaking concentration of substantially prepared music history within 50 hours. (...) Congenial companions were conductor Jonathan Stockhammer and the Philharmonic Orchestra, which almost surpassed themselves in these great moments of modern reception." (on the performance of violin concertos by Stravinsky, Prokoviev, Schönberg, Berg, Hartmann and Bartók with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Dresden Philharmonic)
Sächsische Zeitung, Jens-Uwe Sommerschuh, 10/06/2024
"Jonathan Stockhammer, known for his stylistic openness and curiosity about challenges, conducted the NDR orchestra together with the vocal ensemble and the vocal soloists confidently, sensitively and with great attention to detail through this almost 70-year-old, highly topical docu-drama of tones and sound formations, far beyond the supporting edges of tonality."
Hamburger Abendblatt, Joachim Mischke, 16/3/2024 (about Luigi Nono's "Il canto sospeso" - Festival for the 100th birthday of Luigi Nono in the Elbphilharmonie)
“Never before had the composer Georg Friedrich Haas experienced such devotion at a dress rehearsal. In the concert, under the marvellous baton of Stockhammer, the Staatskapelle Dresden played ‘in vain’ with incredible focus, without prejudice, as if specializing in new music.”
Sächsische Zeitung, Karsten Blüthgen, 5/2/2024
“The performance of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer is first class. The orchestra shows itself in top form and masters Kaun's demanding scores with bravura. Stockhammer confidently leads the orchestra through the sometimes turbulent music, and his sensitive interpretation superbly brings out the emotional nuances of the works.”
Onlinemerker.com, Dirk Schauß, 30 September 2023
“Jonathan Stockhammer stood in for an ailing Rattle with thrilling results. An evening of Adams, Debussy and Ravel allowed all sections of the London Symphony Orchestra to shine in a rich and varied programme of musical blockbusters. Working with an impressionistic musical canvas revealed Stockhammer’s adaptability as a conductor, as he revelled in Debussy’s masterly use of instrumental textures. There was a real sense of nature awakening.”
Opera and Classical Music Reviews, April 2023
“The energy was there, but so too was the expressiveness and the detail: the playing had an extraordinarily clean, gleaming, pristine quality (…). It yielded nothing to Adams’s own performance with the LSO 20 years ago, in its brilliance, its emotional clout and its sense of epiphany.”
Seen and Heard International, April 2023 (about “Harmonielehre” by John Adams)
"Stockhammer delivered a stirring interpretation of the confessional work, far removed from the use of the Ninth as stately celebration music that is often experienced today. He answered the question of the right Beethoven tempo with: brisk and energetic, contrast-emphasizing and conflict-rousing, eruptive in sound and obsessed with detail. All this within great arcs of tension."
Lausitzer Rundschau, Peter Buske, January 2, 2023
"The "Eroica" is gorgeous (...) It has class. The sound was slender and roughened, with the brass pulled out, and the strings degreased and positioned in an unusual way, especially for Beethoven (...). The audience was completely enthusiastic and delighted the conductor with bravos and shouts of joy."
Neue Presse Hannover, Henning Queren, December 6th, 2022
"The Konzerthausorchester under Jonathan Stockhammer continued seamlessly with six pianists, including the GrauSchumacher piano duo, with "limited approximations" by Georg Friedrich Haas, in a wonderfully well-rehearsed and dramaturgically coherent interpretation."
Berliner Zeitung, Peter Uehling, November 23th, 2023 (about the Festival «Aus den Fugen» at the Konzerthaus in Berlin)
"Jonathan Stockhammer who led the Dresden Philharmonic with an almost crystalline view, had the same intellectual sensibility for these tones of sharply inexorable, icy illusion-free clarity as for Schmidt's dark red-black or devouringly over-bright tongues of sound."
F.A.Z., Gerald Felber, October 6th, 2021 (about the World Premiere of Christfried Schmidt's 2nd Symphony)
“Like in a "welcome symphony" the musicians only appear when it's their turn – there are a few show elements, when the horns emit elephant tones, incredible rhythms are danced by the conductor Jonathan Stockhammer – a rock-like spectacle in seven movements. Enthusiastic applause!”
Frankfurter Neue Presse, 02/12/2019
“In conducting the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Jonathan Stockhammer accomplishes the remarkable feat of bringing forth from a large apparatus a broad range of tones. The choir of the Theater Basel, in their supporting role as a collective, was also a tour de force.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Martina Wohlthat, 16/9/2019
“The Basel Symphony Orchestra plays with utmost focus and reveals the full range of musical extremes, in part accompanied by Nono's prescribed tape recordings. The end result, as conjured by conductor Jonathan Stockhammer, are sonic clouds that rise again and again to the threshold of pain and then blaze gently into the ether.”
Deutschlandfunk, Franziska Stürz, 16/9/2019
Jonathan Stockhammer I London Symphony Orchestra I Debussy: La mer
Jonathan Stockhammer | Konzerthausorchester Berlin | Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 "From the new world" | Livestreaming concert
Jonathan Stockhammer | WDR Sinfonieorchester | Leonard Bernstein - Divertimento
Jonathan Stockhammer | WDR Sinfonieorchester | Charles Ives - Variations on "America"